Windburn

“Hey, you okay there, princess?” He leaned over me, far closer than he should have. I opened my eyes and the blue sky was replaced with green eyes and his trademark grin.

“Yes, I’m fine. And don’t call me that. I’ve never been a princess, and wouldn’t want the title even if it were offered to me.” I pushed on his chest and he gave me some room. In his white T-shirt, jeans, and dark shoes he looked . . . human. I, on the other hand, looked like what I was—an Ender. But I trusted Ash. If he thought I could get away with looking a little different, then that’s what I was doing.

Thoughts of Ash brought the guilt back up in a roll not unlike nausea. I forced the guilt away and stood. I would not feel bad for loving Ash. Peta gave me a nod of approval.

“Why did you really come with me?” I stared at Cactus and he stared back. His face softened.

“I know you love him. I know you love me. I want to show you I fit in your life, Lark. That I’m good for you. The only way to do that is to be here. To be where I should have been all these years. At your side.”

My throat tightened, my ears rang, and I knew he was telling the truth as he saw it. I didn’t think, though, that he’d be happy with what the end result was going to be.

Peta broke the moment. “Let’s find this Reader. Do you know where in Bismarck she is?”

I shook my head as Cactus nodded. “How do you know?”

He grinned. “Griffin gave me something call an add-dress.” He held up a slip of paper.

I took it from him. “He wasn’t supposed to, was he?”

“No. But he pointed out we’d probably waste a lot of time looking for the Reader, and apparently he thinks you might try to stall for some reason.”

Embarrassed, I stared at the paper.

“Are you stalling?” His words were soft and gentler than I thought I deserved.

I looked up from the paper and made myself hold his gaze. “I don’t know. I . . . my father needs us to find him. The Rim needs us to find him. Bella needs us to find him.” I paused, took a breath and spit the rest out. “But I don’t know what I want.”

Oh, those words were hard to admit. Cactus nodded. “So we take our time. I don’t mind in the least.” He reached out, took my hand, and wove his fingers through mine.

Exactly as I’d done with Ash. I didn’t pull away, though. I stared at our locked hands. “Cactus, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. I trust you to make the right choice.”

Worm shit. I did pull my hand away then, and looked again to the paper with the add-dress.

The words really meant nothing to me—some numbers, 569—with a single word, Smith. To a human they probably made sense. I looked around. Where was a human when you needed one? They were usually like ants, swarming about and all but climbing over one another, there were so many.

We were at the edge of a large square building with a pole in front with a flag on top. The flag was covered in stripes and stars in the corner. I rather liked the look of it.

“Maybe someone lives in this box.” I took a few steps toward a double set of doors set into the box, and an alarm went off, screeching through the air like a flock of harpies gone mental. I slapped a hand to my side for my spear.

Peta leapt to my shoulder. “Nothing is wrong. This is a way for the humans to tell time.”

The shrieking ended as suddenly as it had begun and I lowered my hands. “Why do they not look at the sun’s passage? Why do they need a shrieking siren to tell them the time?”

What was wrong with them?

“Lazy,” she muttered.

The doors to the big building burst open and a flood of humans rushed out, laughing and yelling at each other, shoving and milling.

It took me a minute to zero in on what I was seeing. They were all teenagers, to the last one. Their life forces hummed around them like a buzzing beehive; they were like bees, not ants. Not unlike a beehive, they kept pouring out of the large boxed building.

I backed up a few steps until my back was pressed against a large tree that shaded a portion of the road we stood near. “How will we ever find her in this mess?”

Cactus took the paper from me. “I’ll see if any of them know what this means.”

Before I could tell him to wait, he ran into the crush of humanity. He wove between them with ease, and with a shock I realized in some ways he fit here. There was no fear in him. But for me the place was overwhelming. “Peta, why is it so hard for me to stand here? I feel like I have all these emotions, and—”

“That is Spirit. Human teenagers are rolling with emotions: angst, fear, hope, love and hate. You’re getting a rather large dose of it all.” Peta pressed her cheek against mine and some of the anxiety flowed away from me. Having her there was enough to help calm the emotions.

“I could never live among them, even if I were banished.”

“Do not even joke about banishment,” she said. “It isn’t funny.”

“Well, I’d still have you.”

Her silence was enough to send a chill through me. “Peta, if I was banished, would you not still be with me?”

“No. Banishment from the elemental world strips you of all your rights and familiars.” Her voice dropped. “I had one charge who was banished, Lark. You do not want that to happen. The madness would take you and then you would end up killing yourself one way or another.”

“What did he do?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, but the talking helped keep the emotions of the humans at bay. Helped me pretend I wasn’t feeling the press of hundreds of teenagers’ fluctuating feelings swirling through me.